Ron Paul, the libertarian former Texas congressman whose hard-line views are widely admired on the radical right but who claims to reject racism, has started a new organization stacked with a hodgepodge of far-right extremists.

As The Daily Beast reported yesterday, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is ostensibly designed to promote a discourse about U.S. foreign policy. But its advisory board is stacked with what writer James Kirchik characterized as “a bevy of conspiracy theorists, cranks, and apologists for some of the worst regimes on the planet.” ( continue to full post… )

“The curse of Ham,” an old-time Biblical (mis)interpretation used to vilify black people and justify slavery and laws against racial intermarriage, is still alive and spreading bigotry in the United States.

The Appleby Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, Texas, is among this country’s scattered, independent fundamentalist churches still openly promoting the idea that the Biblical Noah pronounced a curse on descendants of his son, Ham. Ham had sexually molested Noah as he slept in a drunken stupor, and Noah realized it, the story goes. The curse ultimately fell on Canaan, Noah’s grandson, whose descendants were black and fated to be an underclass of slaves, according to this version of the Bible, which has been widely discredited by mainstream religious scholars. ( continue to full post… )

Howard Phillips, one of the main architects of the Moral Majority and, more generally, the American religious right, died Saturday at the age of 72. According to the Christian News Network, he had been suffering from dementia.

Phillips had a long history in conservative and right-wing movements, including three runs as a third-party presidential candidate. He sat on the board of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) and worked on Barry Goldwater’s unsuccessful 1964 presidential campaign. He then went on to get involved in the administration of Richard Nixon, who appointed him head of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). ( continue to full post… )

With the news that the Boston Marathon bombers may have Chechnyan roots, attention is turning to the threat of “self-radicalized” Muslims in the United States. In the fall of 2011, the Intelligence Report ran a cover story and several sidebars on that phenomenon that may be useful to readers.

Our lead story explored the changing nature of the jihadist threat as extremists living in the country have become at least as dangerous as operatives from abroad. We also published a timeline of 30 attacks by homegrown jihadists since 9/11 and profiles of 10 extremists. I also wrote an accompanying editorial.

At the same time, the fact that the two suspects, one of whom died in a shootout with police, may be Muslim has prompted serious concerns about a backlash against Muslims in this country. We explored issues of Islamophobia in a cover story in our Summer 2011 issue. Accompanying that story was a look at the anti-Muslim inner circle. We also reported recently on the rise in  anti-Muslim hate crimes that began in 2010. Pro-immigrant activists are also worried that the fact that the two suspects were immigrants may harm or even derail efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform in the near future.

Editor’s Note: We’ve corrected the attribution of a quote below suggesting that if the attackers were antigovernment they would have attacked a government target, rather than random Americans. The quote actually came from Mike Lackomar of the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia. Hatewatch regrets the error, which was the result of an editing mistake.

Who was responsible for the deadly Boston terrorist attack?

The Muslims did it. No, it was an illegal immigrant. Think again – it was a gay guy. Wait, you missed the key signs: Our own government once again pulled off an act of covert terror to promote its nefarious aims.

Fingers have been pointed in all of these directions by conspiracy theory peddlers and professional hatemongers since the bombings Monday.

“It’s a pretty safe bet right now that this attack was carried out by an Islamist,” declared a post on the Tea Party Nation website Tuesday. The obvious cause for the violence? “We have a government that is not committed to protecting America.” Linking Islam with Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” of Communism, the post warned that the Boston bombings are just another event presaging future violence in “an ideological war” that can only be won if we have tougher, more anti-Islam U.S. political leaders. That, of course, would be the Tea Party cabal.

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The “American psyche” was damaged when an armed arsonist set fire to a Toledo mosque, much like the impact of Monday’s bombings in Boston, a federal judge said in sentencing an Indiana man to 20 years in prison.

Randolph Linn, 52, of St. Joe, Ind., was also ordered to pay restitution of more than $1.4 million. He pleaded guilty in December to setting fire to the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo last September. He told the court he was inspired by media accounts, specificially those on Fox News, suggesting Muslims were threatening Americans and controlling parts of the federal government.

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Two white supremacists are in custody and two more are being sought in the beating death in Tennessee of a volunteer firefighter who authorities say was affiliated with the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations.

At least one of the four suspects is reportedly a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison-based, “whites-only” gang that is known as one of the most violent of its type in the country. In recent years, felons released from prison have increasingly continued to work for the Aryan Brotherhood, which frequently is involved in drug dealing, in the outside world. ( continue to full post… )

Over 150 white nationalists gathered yesterday at Montgomery Bell State Park outside Nashville, Tenn., for the American Renaissance conference. This year’s event featured new speakers and a noticeably younger audience, with half the crowd raising their hands after Jared Taylor, emcee of the event, opened it by asking, “How many of you are first time attendees?”

One first time speaker was “RamZPaul,” real name Paul Ray Ramsey, whose series of YouTube videos have racked up some 4.3 million views in the last four years (only former Klansman David Duke seems to have outpaced him among web-savvy racists, with more than 6.7 million YouTube views in the same time period). Posting what he calls “mostly satire that pokes fun at the establishment,” the 49-year-old Tulsa suburbanite’s sarcastic videos have become a weekly staple on major racist websites including Vanguard News Network and Stormfront. ( continue to full post… )

Jared Taylor, the man behind the racist American Renaissance journal that is at the heart of the white nationalist movement, kicks off his latest annual conference tonight at Montgomery Bell State Park, just outside Nashville, Tenn. This is the second year the event has been held at the park, after several attempts to hold the event at hotels were thwarted by protesters and the occasional bomb threat.

The theme of this year’s conference, which ends on Sunday, is “A Recommitment to Our People.” The lineup of speakers encompasses a wide range of college professors, a European white nationalist, a Holocaust-denying attorney, and various other white nationalist columnists and bloggers. ( continue to full post… )

Criminal charges have been dropped against nine of 13 people arrested last year in Florida for allegedly participating in paramilitary training with the American Front, described by authorities as a well-armed, militia-style white supremacist group.

Only its leader, Marcus Faella, 39, still faces trial next month in Osceola County. He is charged with participating and teaching paramilitary training, attempting to shoot into an occupied dwelling, and directing the activities of a gang.

Previously, defendant Christopher Brooks, 28, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Luke Leger, 32, and Kent McLellan, 22, each received four years probation after pleading no contest to charges of participating in paramilitary training.

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